Assassin
Introduction
This page contains the Assassin Class Guide. You may return to Classes when you are finished reading this page.
Assassin Class Guide
Strong physical attacks that allow you to cut through enemies. Evade your foes and launch sneak attacks with your agileness and stealth.
Assassin is a physical type class that relies on dealing quick damage with moderate cost. As a physical class, Assassins make good use of the melee skill which has no cost. They also have a self-buff that increases strength and a cost/damage heavy skill. With the Stealth ability, assassins can better avoid enemies and instantly disengage fights. It also has a low cooldown. If you do not like the tanky class, Titan, which sacrifices damage (also higher costs) for defense, and do not wish to play the cast heavy magical type classes, Assasin is the class for you.
Stat Breakdown
Strength- Increases Physical damage.
Stamina- Increases Health and Rage.
Agility- Increases Physical Crit and Dodge.
Spirit- Increases Dodge (absorb) and Health and Rage regen outside combat. Rage regen is half as effective in combat
Intellect- Increases Rage cost reduction
Stat Build
Your gear scales best with Strength, Stamina, and Agility
The weapon and offhand I have shown here are the best (aside from the premium ones of course)
Both Spirit and Intellect scale poorly and don't contribute as much.
Agility seems to be useful but the diminishing returns are great. At the "Base" level you automatically get around 3.6% Crit/Dodge and doesn't take much to increase it to an even 4, but the value required to "advance" to the next tier (4%, 6%, etc.) increases exponentially.
Training (activities > training)
- (6/7):3:1 split between Str:Stm:Agl is a good ratio
- Train Strength 6 or 7 times, for every 3 times you train Stamina
- Train Stamina 3 times, for every time you train Agility
- Occasionally train Intellect and Spirit based on your level.
- For example, at level 10 train Intellect and Spirit 10 times.
- You can also train more with training energy
- Reserve points for main stats
- Eventually Strength will outweigh Stamina by a lot more
- Once you reach the endgame you can switch to a higher ratio like 10:1 between Str:Stm
- Agility can be trained to certain thresholds as you wish
Skills
Melee- Deals minor damage
Since assassins scale with strength, this skill will be your bread and butter along with stab. This skill costs no rage.
Unlocked at Start and Rank increases every 15 levels
Stab- Deals moderate damage
This attack is your bread and butter along with melee. It costs a small portion of your rage and can be strengthened further with Improved Stab, giving it 30% more crit chance.
Unlocked at Start and Rank increases every 20 levels
Sever- Deals moderate damage over time
This attack costs as much as Stab and should be used at the beginning of combat. This attack will deal damage 2 to 3 times (once every 5 seconds) and is the most cost-efficient skill. Only use it if you can’t kill an enemy within 10-15 seconds, or 25-30 seconds with Improved Sever
Unlocked at Level 10 and Rank increases every 20 levels
Bladestorm- Deals massive damage
A very costly skill that deals massive damage. If you value your rage, do not use it. Even for a skill with a 10-second cooldown, Bladestorm costs 50% to over double the rage as stab does. The disadvantages of this skill outweigh the advantages. You can still use it in your rotation if you use the lowest rank (at level 60)
Unlocked at Level 20 and Rank increases every 20 levels
Distracting Throw- Deals minor damage from a distance
This attack costs the least rage. You can use the lowest rank to pull one enemy at a time or use it with melee and stab. It can be rage inefficient as it barely deals more damage than melee, but way more efficient than Bladestom.
Unlocked at level 4 and Rank increases every 20 levels
Assassin's Vigour- Temporarily increases strength
A simple skill that temporarily increases your damage output by an equivalent of a Fair Strength Potion (15%). Always use.
Unlocked at level 30
Stealth- Hide from enemies
The skill that distinguishes itself from the other classes (at least at the beginning). It can hide you from enemies (as long as you don’t get too close), and can disengage you from combat if it succeeds (deactivates when you take dot damage). The aggro in this game only happens when you move so you can recover your health and rage before attacking again (I don’t know if this is a bug or not but it’s probably how the coding works).
Unlocked at Start
Incapacitate- Stun an enemy
This skill is unlocked through the talent tree and stuns your enemies for 2 ticks, which is about 10 seconds. I do not recommend unlocking this skill and I will explain in the talent tree section.
Rotation
- Use Assassin's Vigour if it expires
- Begin the attack with Distracting Throw if the enemy is far away
- Attack with Sever.
- Keep using it to refresh as long as you can’t defeat the enemy within 10-15 seconds.
- Use Bladestorm if you are willing to waste rage, defeating them faster, and completing a quest or gaining XP.
- It is not worth using in the middle of a fight as It’s a waste of rage using an already rage inefficient skill
- Spam Melee, Stab, and Bladestorm (if using lowest rank)
- Use Incapacitate (not recommended) to stun powerful enemies or to conserve health and rage if you can kill them while stunned.
- Use Stealth to recover health and mana or to wait for a food/potion cooldown. You must not move after casting this or enemies will attack you
Tl;dr Spam Melee and Stab for damage (maybe Distracting Throw also)
Talent Tree Overview
I consider the left tree to be the defensive/utility while the right tree is the offensive. You can reset anytime. but just note the cost to reset (after the first free reset) increases every time you reset.
You shouldn't worry about the Talent Tree early on as you only start with one point, gaining more every ten levels. There side quests near the second half of the game that rewards you with a total of 5 talent points. I will list all the talents you can learn and the order you should learn it.
Tier 1
In the first tier you have Improved Strength and Improved Agility which increases your stat. You need all 3 points in this in order to learn a second-tier skill called Discipline and Masters training respectively. At max level, you can gain up to 10 percent more of a stat through training. Strength (Masters training) is definitely preferred over Agility (Discipline).
Next, you have Improved Sever, which actually was a skill I mistook as useless. It said that increases the duration of Sever by 1%, which in reality is actually 1 tick. A tick equals 5 seconds, so at the max rank, you deal at least double the bleed damage. Take this first.
I've mentioned a defensive/utility and offensive split, but Channel Energy and Thick armor are in separate talent trees. Flexibility decreases physical damage taken by up to 6% while Improved armor raises your armor gained by items by 10%. They are both defensive talents that should be in the same tree. Nonetheless, these skills should be one of the last talents to level. Also to note, eventually Channel Energy will surpass Thick armor since you will cap on gear level.
Improved stealth does nothing since the skill got revamped.
You have Flexibility which increases dodge chance by up to 10%. Being able to dodge more is infinitely better than taking less damage. Both only apply to physical attacks as well so dodge is dominant. Crit and Dodge also go hand in hand.
Tier 2
To reiterate, You need all 3 points in either Improved Strength or Improved Agility in order to learn a second-tier skill called Discipline and Masters training respectively. At max level, you can gain up to 10 percent more of a stat through training. Strength (Masters training) is definitely preferred over Agility (Discipline).
Also to reiterate, Channel Energy and Thick armor are in separate talent trees even though they are similar (defense/utility). Flexibility decreases physical damage taken by up to 6% while Improved armor raises your armor gained by items by 10%. They are both defensive talents that should be in the same tree. Nonetheless, these skills should be one of the last talents to level. Again, Channel Energy will surpass Thick armor since you will cap on gear level.
Improved Stab is a second-tier skill that you should prioritize over the third-tier talents I will mention later. It raises the crit chance of your stab skill by up to 30%. This ensures you crit a third of the time (30% plus "default" 3% from agility), which is big considering how much agility it requires to increase crit anyways.
Similar to Improved Strength/Improved Agility, you have Focus and Pain. Focus lowers the rage cost of your skills by up to 10% while pain increases your crit chance by up to 5%. I’d prioritize Pain over Focus as both it and Penetration increase your damage output. You must max either skill (Focus or Pain) to be able to unlock the final talent.
Tier 3
Incapacitate is the only skill you have to unlock through the talent tree. It stuns your enemy for two ticks, which is a lot despite two ticks sounding like a little (10 seconds). It has a long cooldown of 60 seconds which might deter you from using it. But you should also be deterred from using it because the other talent, Penetration, is the superior one.
Penetration is a strong skill that allows you to reduce the effect of enemy armor by 20%. You’ll be able to deal more damage and is definitely better than a stun. This talent isn’t the most important though, as I consider Improved Stab to be Assassin's greatest talent.
Talent Order
This is, therefore, the order in which you should level your talents
Improved Sever Improved Strength to 2 Improved Stab Pain Penetration Improved Strength to 3 Masters training Flexibility Focus Incapacitate Channel Energy Thick armor Improved Agility Discipline Improved Stealth (just to unlock them all)
Assuming you have 6 extra talent points you should unlock Penetration at level 80. You can decide to upgrade master training first, but I recommend doing it after Pain and Penetration.